See these babies? These are my credit cards. One is pink! But one is a nasty, murky blue. Gah to the nasty blue credit card!

These cards live on my desk now. This isn’t in order to make internet shopping easier (Although it totally does! Kidding. I’m kidding!) but to remind me at all times that I? Am terrible with money. Terrible. Absolutely freaking awful if you want to know the truth.

Case in point? This time last year we had to prepare our accounts for the year to send to our accountant. (Which is something I like saying because it makes me sound like a real business person. Which I totally am not.) During this hellish process, it transpired that I was supposed to have kept hold of each and every one of my bank statements for the year. That’s twelve bank statements, total. The number of bank statements I actually had in my possession? Zero. None. Nadda.

I had to call the bank and ask them to send me copies of all of the statements. I really hated doing this because a) they were kind of pissy about it and b) when you call my bank, the first thing you get is a recorded message saying, “Hello! We are your bank and there is no way in hell you’re ever getting to speak to us, sucker! Please select from the following seven options. Please note that no matter which option you pick, it will be the wrong one. Have a nice day!”

So, long story short, I promised myself that this would never happen again, and that I would be a super-organised perfect person who kept all of the bits of paper she needed to keep and knew exactly how to get her hands on them when the time came.
Well, the time came today, people. Number of bank statements needed: 12. Number possessed: 3.

In my defence, I’m doing better than last year. And if I continue to improve at the same rate it will only be another three years before I remember to keep them all. (That’s assuming that my maths is correct, and, you know what? It probably isn’t. If I was anyways good at maths, I wouldn’t be in this sorry mess to start with.)

Anyway. Credit cards. The pretty pink one contains an amount which, although not quite so pretty and pink as the card itself, is nevertheless not too frightening. The murky blue card contains a big, frightening balance which I’m going to call Bryan. Do you think I can kill off Bryan in the course of this year, and keep my sanity (and also buy shoes and organise a wedding?) No, me neither. But let’s give it a shot, shall we?